


Is This How You Rule?

by Current521



Category: Firebringer - Team StarKid
Genre: Brief appearances by Zazzalil and Tiblyn, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Cannibalism, Gen, Growing Up, Peacemaker, it's not particularly graphic i guess?, murder happens, not a major character but it sure happens, technically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2020-08-19
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:02:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25991050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Current521/pseuds/Current521
Summary: Jemilla is in her fourth summer when the stranger arrives.Jemilla is in her fifteenth summer when she earns her title.Jemilla is in her twenty-second winter when she speaks to Molag about how they rule.
Relationships: Jemilla & Molag (Firebringer)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 10





	Is This How You Rule?

**Author's Note:**

> This is basically an exploration of the relationship between Jemilla and Molag, and the "Peacemaker" and "Warmonger" titles
> 
> Title and idea from "Peacemaker" by The Mechanisms

Jemilla is in her fourth summer when the stranger arrives. The stranger looks like her mother, kind of, but with darker skin and different dress. She's holding a stick, but she doesn't lean on it the way the elders back in the village do; she's standing tall, holding it casually.

"Go over there, Jemilla." Her mother points at a big rock. "Don't look."

"Okay mother." Jemilla complies; she goes behind the rock, and doesn't look, even when she can hear her mother scream and the sound of something being knocked together, like when the elders hit sticks together to scare wolves.

Eventually, the stranger walks over to where Jemilla is standing. "Hey kid." She kneels down. "My name's Molag."

"I'm Jemilla." The stranger's stick is slick and red now. Jemilla has a feeling she doesn't want to know why.

"Hello Jemilla." Molag stands up and reaches out, putting a hand on Jemilla's shoulder. "You're coming with me."

Jemilla doesn't want to go with Molag, she wants to stay with her mother. But Molag roughly pulls her forward, and Jemilla sees her mother. She's covered in the same red stuff as Molag's staff, and she doesn't look right. She isn't moving, and Jemilla doesn't think she ever will. So she follows Molag.

Molag leads them over the plains to a cave filled with people. She introduces Jemilla and claims that she's part of their tribe now. Jemilla doesn't want to be a part of their tribe, but they give her food, something soft and juicy, and she knows she can't go home. So she nods and stays, and Molag lets her sleep in the dry spot that first night.

Jemilla is in her ninth winter when she realises how Molag does things. Molag realises that there are other people in the area, and she goes out to find them, and when she comes back, her stick is slick and red, and she brings food. Never children, though; only ever Jemilla.

"Molag?"

"Yes, Jemilla."

"Why do you go out to find others? Why do you come back hurting?" Jemilla helps Molag wash the red out of her shirt in the watering hole. "What is out there?"

"Just other people," Molag replies. "Other people who can hurt us, who can take our food and our cave and our water and our duck. So I stop them before they do."

"But what if we work together?" Jemilla asks. "You saved me, five summers ago. You could save other people, then we could share."

"No." Molag shakes the water off of her stick, the water near them now red. "There cannot be peace with these people."

Jemilla nods and gives Molag her shirt back, but inside, she disagrees. There must be a way to make peace; her old people, her mother whom she barely remembers, the elders that plague the edges of her dreams, they could have helped.

There could have been peace.

Jemilla is in her fifteenth summer when she earns her title.

It is a small dispute at first. Tiblyn, who is older and stronger than Jemilla, is assigned to hold up the sky, when Morred is too old to do it anymore. Then Zazzalil, who is one summer Jemilla's junior, and an absolute menace, laughs during the ceremony.

"Don't laugh!" Tiblyn says. "This is a big deal, Zazzalil, laughing is rude."

Zazzalil shrugs. "I didn't mean to, it just happened. Stop having a stick up your ass, Tiblyn, it's fine."

This is when Jemilla steps in. "Now, you stop that. Tiblyn, I'm sure Zazzalil didn't mean to laugh. Zazzalil, if you just say…  _ Sorry _ . Say  _ sorry  _ and everything will be fine. Right Tiblyn?"

Tiblyn nods.

"Fine. I'm… I'm sorry, okay?" Zazzalil crosses her arms. "I'm sorry."

Jemilla looks at Tiblyn. "Are you angry at Zazzalil?"

"No." Tiblyn smiles. "Not anymore."

"Good." Jemilla steps back.

Molag finds her later. "Good job back there, Peacemaker," she says.

"Oh, I just used some reason." Jemilla smiles. "But thank you."

_ Peacemaker _ . She likes the sound of that.

Jemilla is in her twentieth summer when Molag passes rule on to her. "You'll do much better," Molag promises. "You're the Peacemaker."

"Molag, I don't know how to lead. I'm not like you," Jemilla pleads. She is equal parts flattered, proud, surprised, and terrified. "I don't know how to give commands."

"You won't have to." Molag smiles. "They all love you, they respect you. They'll do what you ask." She gets up and leaves the cave.

Jemilla wants to follow, to ask for advice, but instead, she mentally shoulders the new burden, adjusting to its weight. She is the Peacemaker. She straightens her back and walks out of the cave.

The Peacemaker is celebrated as the new leader of the tribe, and Jemilla keeps her back straight and her smile wide and her terror in her heart.

Jemilla is in her twenty-second winter when she speaks to Molag about how they rule. How they rule together, how they rule separately, how they rule  _ differently _ .

"The tribe is better with you," Molag says, shelling nuts. "Less violent. You're the Peacemaker, after all."

"We were stronger with you," Jemilla argues, checking the nuts Molag hands her for spots. "We had more food."

"That's because we ate people." Molag says it so calmly, when the idea has turned Jemilla's stomach since she realised what they were doing. "We need people to make the tribe strong."

"Yes, but we need food to be strong, too." Jemilla sighs. "I just don't know what to do, really."

"You will," Molag promises. "Or, actually, that's not true. I made it all up on the fly. You'll learn to as well."

"Is this how you rule?" Jemilla asks, gesturing to the stones Molag us using to crush the nuts. "With force and destruction?"

"Yes." Molag hands over the nut. "Is this how  _ you  _ rule, Peacemaker?" She gestures to Jemilla's hands, the nut in it, the two carefully sorted piles. "With gentle hands and caring eyes?"

"Yes." Jemilla places the nut in the larger pile. "It is."

"The Peacemaker and the Warmonger." Molag laughs. "We are different."

"But not opposite," Jemilla says, lingering on Molag's hand when she takes the nut. "We can make peace."

"You can." Molag takes her hand back. "You're the Peacemaker."

Jemilla is in her twenty-fourth summer when her world shatters.

Molag tells her what she's done. All the lies she's told, all the ways she's kept everyone under her rule for so long, and now under Jemilla's rule. All the ways she's kept her brand of peace.

But Jemilla is the Peacemaker, not Molag, and Jemilla will make her own peace. A peace without lies, a peace with openness, with honesty, with calm, with truth.

A peace with Jemilla.


End file.
